Readers share memories of the Kennedy assassination

Timeline and memories of the Kennedy assassination

Photo: AP

Image 1of/19

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 19

November 21, 1963: President Kennedy arrives in San Antonio to begin his visit to Texas.

"I shook the hand of President John F. Kennedy at the Rice Hotel the night before his assassination. My mother was an officer in her L.U.L.A.C. club, and she and I attended a banquet being held there on 11/21/63. We drove in from Port Arthur to see the President and First Lady. I was a 19 year old, college freshman. When the President walked into the room, I ran up to the dais. He spoke and then introduced his wife. Mrs. Kennedy spoke to us in Spanish in her soft voice. When they were about to leave, I yelled out, “Mr. President, Mr. President,” and I raised my hand up to him, hoping to shake his hand. He walked over to me, bent down and took my hand in his and gave me a big smile. I remember looking up into his blue eyes and seeing his reddish, brown hair. His hand felt so soft. On the way home, my mother remembers that I was on cloud nine. The next day, when I was entering my biology class, a friend walked over to me and told me that the president had been shot. I was so angry with this classmate. It couldn’t be true. My mother and I were in shock for the next several days. We had just seen this wonderful man, so alive and vibrant and with so much promise."

"At about 12:45 p.m., on my way home from U of H, I stopped for gas at the filling station on Holcombe near Greenbriar. I remember as I went into the station to pay for my gas, the attendant said to me, “I just heard on the radio that shots were fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade in Dallas.” I immediately went home and turned on the TV and watched Walter Cronkite report those now infamous words, “President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. central time some 38 minutes ago.” I felt pain, shock and disbelief knowing that less than 24 hours before I shook the President’s hand on his arrival in Houston, when as a member of the U of H Young Democrats we welcomed his party at the airport. I had seen a leader filled with life and promise not only for his Presidency but for our Country and all Americans."

"I was a freshman at Tulane University in New Orleans sitting in my German 101 class when the teacher told us that President Kennedy had been shot. She asked the class to say in German, “The President has been shot,” which I thought was weird. We did not know at that time if he was alive or dead. Of course once class let out we learned the awful truth.
November 22, 1963 was a Friday and I left for Thanksgiving holiday the next day to return to my hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, and what a coincidence for me. I lived in Fort Worth where President Kennedy gave his last speech of his presidency at the Hotel Texas."

November 22, 1963: Thepresidential motorcade drives through the streets of Fort Worth on way to Carswell Air Force Base for a very short flight to Dallas.

"I was attending school at Holy Trinity, a Catholic school and church near the route that the President’s motorcade would be traveling. A couple days before the event, with the threat of showers, the nuns asked us all to pray so that the weather would be sunny, and Kennedy’s convertible would be open.
On the morning of November 22, all the students and teachers paraded to the closest viewing site, to wave to the motorcade, as it passed by.
Later that day, as we were in the cafeteria, we heard the shocking announcement that Kennedy had been shot. Once again, we were asked to pray, as our Church pastor, Father Oscar Huber, rushed to Parkland Hospital to give President Kennedy his Last Rites."

11:40 a.m., November 22, 1963: President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, arrive at Love Field airport in Dallas.

"My grandmother, brother and I were at Love Field early in the morning, on an adventure to see the President. I was a senior in high school and my brother a sophomore, we were eager to skip a day of school, but my grandmother, ever the teacher, was presenting history to us.
At Love Field, on that beautiful cold fall day, we got pressed up against a chain link fence, but had perfect view of everyone coming off the plane. President Kennedy and Mrs. Kennedy walked straight to the fence and began shaking hands with as many people as they could. My grandmother always said that Jackie looked her in the eyes, shook her hand, and looked at my grandmothers hat (pill box style) and smiled.
We were so happy and excited when we left the airport, only to drive a few miles and hear on the car radio, ”the President has been shot!!” My grandmother had to pull over, she couldn’t drive. I took over and drove home crying and spent the entire weekend watching history unfold on our little TV."

12:54 p.m., November 22, 1963: The presidential motorcade leaves Love Field en route to the Dallas Business and Trade Mart.

"I was downtown in Dallas the day Kennedy was assassinated. I was a student at a Catholic girls’ school, and we talked the nuns into letting us go see the president. People were four deep, spilling into the street, and we were on the front row. We could almost reach out and touch the president and Jackie. They were both so bright and beautiful; they sparkled. I remember turning to my friend and telling her that I wished I were old enough to vote for Kennedy. When we were on the bus getting ready to return to school, some boys we knew told us that the president had been shot. When I see old news footage of that day in Dallas, I sometimes catch a fleeting glimpse of a group of girls in their Catholic school uniforms, smiling and tossing confetti, unaware that in a few moments, our country would be forever changed."

"I was ten years old and I saw the President ten minutes before he was murdered. My fifth grade classmates and I were standing on the corner of Lemmon Ave and Mockingbird Lane in Dallas to see the President as his motorcade left Love Field. I was no more than ten feet from the Lincoln convertible. I yelled out “Mr President!” and he looked straight at me and smiled and waved. I remember him being so tan, his face slightly bloated, and his hair very thick. He was slightly slumped in the backseat (now I know due to his backbrace). Jackie Kennedy’s suit was a vibrant pink. I was thrilled! By the time we returned to school, we found out he had been shot. A day I will never forget."

12:30 p.m., November 22, 1963: Moments later, shots ring out and President John F. Kennedy is killed nearly instantly.

"I was paying my lunch bill at the Snowden delicatessen in Montreal, Canada, when the cashier said, “Did you hear about President Kennedy?” I thought that was the first line to a joke she was about to tell. But it was no joke — the president had been shot. Stunned, I walked out onto the street as every car was pulling over to the side of the road. Drivers rested their heads on their steering wheels as tears streamed down their checks. Nothing was moving. Traffic had come to a complete halt."

Dallas businessman Abraham Zapruder used this 8 mm home movie camera to film JFK’s motorcade. He was the only eyewitness to capture the entire assassination on film.

"I was a 13 year old Dallas Junior High student. My mother worked downtown, and had let me skip classes to go with her that day to see the president. We were standing on the curb on Elm Street, about 15 feet from the limousine, when the shots struck. Not a sight ever to be forgotten. Needless to say, this proximity created lasting impressions of what occurred that day."

"I was a very young nurse working at Parkland Hospital just around the corner from the ER that day. Shortly after noon time I was eating in the cafeteria when the voice pages went off calling for neuro-surgeons, chest surgeons etc to report to the ER. A sense of dread went through us all. We were all concerned for the Presidents safety all morning. Word spread quickly that it was the presidential party that the doctors were needed for. I don’t think they had even arrived yet, but the secret service had radioed ahead. We knew almost immediately that it was the president who had been seriously injured and the governor had been wounded. Secret Service swarmed all over."

12:33 p.m., November 22, 1963: Assassin Lee Harvey Oswald leaves the Texas School Book Depository after interacting with a police officer and a supervisor, who said Oswald appeared calm.

"As a sixth-grader sitting in class after an early lunch at Johnson Elementary School in Abilene, I was stunned to hear the speaker kick on with the principal telling my teacher and classmates, “Send William Wade to my office … NOW.” This had never happened before!
I opened the door with trepidation only to see the three office ladies crying and sobbing. The principal came out with an ashen look and told me what had happened. “Since you are captain of the safety patrol this month, I need for you to go out and lower the flag to half mast.” I still remember that cool fall day and its bright blue sky like it was only yesterday.
I may have only been 11 years old, but part of me grew up that day."

1:15 p.m., November 22, 1963: Lee Harvey Oswald murders J.D. Tippit, a member of the Dallas Police Department during a confrontation which was witnessed by over a dozen citizens.

"The day that Kennedy was shot I was in basic training for the US Army at Fort Polk Louisiana. We had just come in from the firing range and someone said that Kennedy had been shot. As it turns out we had a guy in our unit who was not that bright and he had not qualified on the range that day and had to stay late to keep trying. His name was Kennedy as well. So we assumed that he had stood up on the range and gotten shot. After we realized it was the President we were all very concerned we were going directly from basic training to some foreign land to fight for our country. We thought that for several days until it was revealed how and who shot him."

"I was working as an apprentice pressman in the pressroom of the Wichita Falls Times- Record News when the foreman came running in & stopped the presses. He told us that President Kennedy & Governor Connely had been shot in Dallas.
We pulled the front page plate off & waited for a new one. The new plate read “EXTRA” “President is shot!” We ran about 2,500 copies. There was a very short story stating that the President & Governor had been wounded.
A few minutes later, another new front page read “EXTRA” “President is killed.” This page had a border line across the top of the that printed in black. We printed the remainder of our circulation with the black banner across the front page.
This was one of the saddest times of my life. I kept several copies of both editions. Several years later, I went to work in the pressroom at the Dallas Morning News. My wife & I lived in Irving, TX. I drove to work on the R. L. Thornton Fwy. & had to go under the triple underpass both going to & coming from work. When I left work, I turned left out of the parking lot & went one block. I then turned right & went north towards the Texas Schoolbook Depository. As I turned left in front of the building, I always looked up at the window from which Lee Harvey Oswald shot our President."

2:38 p.m., November 22, 1963: President Lydon Johnson is sworn in aboard Air Force One as Kennedy's body is transported on the same plane back to Washington, D.C.

"I am a retired Delta Airline pilot, and I was on my trip from Hobby to New York. I was about halfway to New York when the controller told me I could not change altitude because Air Force One would be passing under me southbound. I saw him coming and I asked the pilot how they were doing. He said, “OK, just fine.” I asked him how his “first-class passenger” was, and he said, “Just fine, looking forward to going to Texas.”
The next day, I was flying back to New York. When I was taxiing to the runway, I was told JFK was shot. We were about halfway, when Air Force One came on the radio, saying they were going to Washington. It was the same pilot, and he could hardly talk."

Nov. 24, 1963: Lee Harvey Oswald was shot and killed by Dallas night club owner Jack Ruby at him from point blank range in a corridor of Dallas police headquarters.

"I was a 9 year old fourth grader in Richardson, Texas- a suburb of Dallas. I remember the announcement over the school PA system and watching my teacher start to cry. A lot of the chidden started to cry too. All of the moms came to pick their children up, including mine though we lived only a block away. Everyone was glued to the television for days and we were watching when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald."

"I was moving to Washington, D.C. That night, we found an eerie, surreal scene — a deserted capital city and its lighted monuments, but almost no people or cars on the streets except police. Everyone was at home, glued to their TVs. The next night was a completely different scene, however. My sister and I went to the Capitol to see the president lying in state, and I will never forget the throngs of people still arriving when we left at 1 a.m. The following Thursday morning, Thanksgiving, my mother, sister and I decided to go to Arlington Cemetery to see JFK’s burial site. While we were walking up the hill, Mrs. Kennedy arrived unannounced. We stood aside respectfully as she walked by. It was a moving, unforgettable moment."

December 5, 1963: The Warren Commission, the group investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, meets for the first time. Among the group is Rep. Hale Boggs (D-La.), second from left, who presumably died in 1972, when a twin-engine plane disappeared in a remote part of Alaska. The wreckage was never found. Congressman Nick Begich also was aboard and presumed dead. Boggs was not declared until Jan. 3, 1973.

"I was eight years old on Nov. 22, 1963, living on a remote Air Force Base in Clear, Alaska, when my teacher told me the news that our president had been killed in Dallas that day (we were 4 hours behind in our time zone). My father was in charge of maintaining the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) and the danger of incoming missiles from Russia was a very real concern in those days. My school was on the base and I was immediately taken home, where my mother and father were crying and listening to the radio. There was no TV. It was the first time I ever saw my father cry, but I was mostly worried about what the Russians might do to us, now that our President was dead. It was the end of my childhood innocence and the awareness that violence was a real threat to anyone at anytime. A sad reality to learn at such a young age."

December 5, 1963: The Warren Commission, the group investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, meets for the first time. Among the group is Rep. Hale Boggs (D-La.), second from left, who ... more

"I was five years old and had never seen my mother cry. We were in the back bedroom of our home in Spring Branch (Houston) and I asked her why she was crying. She said they had killed the President. My parents were devout Catholics and all I could think of was all the times we had shouted, “all the way with JFK.” I have been to Dallas many times to sit and stare. To this day, I don’t understand the hate in the world."